CHAPTER XVI.
Charleston; the Market-place—Irishmen at Charleston—Governor
Pickens: his political economy and theories—Newspaper offices
and counting-houses—Rumors as to the war policy of the South.
April 19th.—An exceeding hot day. The sun pours on
the broad sandy street of Charleston with immense power, and
when the wind blows down the thoroughfare it sends before
it vast masses of hot dust. The houses are generally detached,
surrounded by small gardens, well provided with verandas to
protect the windows from the glare, and are sheltered with
creepers and shrubs and flowering plants, through which flit
humming-birds and fly-catchers. In some places the streets
and roadways are covered with planking, and as long as the
wood is sound they are pleasant to walk or drive upon.
I paid a visit to the markets; the stalls are presided over by
negroes, male and female; the colored people engaged in selling
and buying are well clad; the butchers' meat by no means
tempting to the eye, but the fruit and vegetable stalls well
filled. Fish is scarce at present, as the boats are not permitted
to proceed to sea lest they should be whipped up by the expected
Yankee cruisers, or carry malecontents to communicate
with the enemy. Around the flesh-market there is a skirling
crowd of a kind of turkey-buzzard; these are useful as scavengers
and are protected by law. They do their nasty work
very zealously, descending on the offal thrown out to them
with the peculiar crawling, puffy, soft sort of flight which is
the badge of all their tribe, and contending with wing and beak
against the dogs which dispute the viands with the harpies.
It is curious to watch the expression of their eyes as with outstretched
necks they peer down from the ledge of the market
roof on the stalls and scrutinize the operations of the butchers
below. They do not prevent a disagreeable odor in the
vicinity of the markets, nor are they deadly to a fine and
active breed of rats.
Much drumming and marching through the streets to-day.
One very ragged regiment which had been some time at Morris'
Island halted in the shade near me, and I was soon made
aware they consisted, for the great majority, of Irishmen,
The Emerald Isle, indeed, has contributed largely to the population
of Charleston. In the principal street there is a
large and fine red-sandstone building with the usual Greek-Yankee-composite
portico, over which is emblazoned the
crownless harp and the shamrock wreath proper to a St.
Patrick's Hall, and several Roman Catholic churches also
attest the Hibernian presence.
I again called on General Beauregard, and had a few moments'
conversation with him. He told me that an immense
deal depended on Virginia, and that as yet the action of the
people in that State had not been as prompt as might have
been hoped, for the President's proclamation was a declaration
of war against the South, in which all would be ultimately involved.
He is going to Montgomery to confer with Mr. Jefferson
Davis. I have no doubt there is to be some movement
made in Virginia. Whiting is under orders to repair there,
and he hinted that he had a task of no common nicety and difficulty
to perform. He is to visit the forts which had been seized
on the coast of North Carolina, and probably will have a look
at Portsmouth. It is incredible that the Federal authorities
should have neglected to secure this place.
Later I visited the Governor of the State, Mr. Pickens, to
whom I was conducted by Colonel Lucas, his aide-de-camp.
His palace was a very humble shed-like edifice with large
rooms, on the doors of which were pasted pieces of paper
with sundry high-reading inscriptions, such as. "Adjutant
General's Dept.," "Quartermaster-General's Dept.," "Attorney-General
of State," &c.; and through the doorways could
be seen men in uniform, and grave, earnest people busy at
their desks with pen, ink, paper, tobacco, and spittoons. The
governor, a stout man, of a big head, and a large, important-looking
face, with watery eyes and flabby features, was seated
in a barrack-like room, furnished in the plainest way, and
decorated by the inevitable portrait of George Washington,
close to which was the "Ordinance of Secession of the State
of South Carolina" of last year.
Governor Pickens is considerably laughed at by his subjects;
and I was amused by a little middy, who described with
much unction the Governor's alarm on his visit to Fort Pickens,
when he was told that there were a number of live shells
and a quantity of powder still in the place. He is said to
have commenced one of his speeches with "Born insensible
to fear," &c. To me the Governor was very courteous; but I
confess the heat of the day did not dispose me to listen with
due attention to a lecture on political economy with which he
favored me. I was told, however, that he had practised with
success on the late Czar when he was United States Minister
to St. Petersburg, and that he does not suffer his immediate
staff to escape from having their minds improved on the relations
of capital to labor, and on the vicious condition of capital
and labor in the North.
"In the North, then, you will perceive, Mr. Russell, they
have maximized the hostile condition of opposed interests in
the accumulation of capital and in the employment of labor,
whilst we in the South, by the peculiar excellence of our domestic
institution, have minimized their opposition and maximized
the identity of interest by the investment of capital in
the laborer himself," and so on, or something like it. I could
not help remarking it struck me there was "another difference
betwixt the North and the South which he had overlooked,—
the capital of the North is represented by gold, silver, notes,
and other exponents, which are good all the world over and
are recognized as such; your capital has power of locomotion,
and ceases to exist the moment it crosses a geographical line."
"That remark, sir," said the Governor, "requires that I
should call your attention to the fundamental principles on
which the abstract idea of capital should be formed. In order
to clear the ground, let us first inquire into the soundness of
the ideas put forward by your Adam Smith."—I had to
look at my watch and to promise I would come back to be
illuminated on some other occasion, and hurried off to keep
an engagement with myself to write letters by the next mail.
The Governor writes very good proclamations, nevertheless,
and his confidence in South Carolina is unbounded. "If
we stand alone, sir, we must win. They can't whip us." A
gentleman named Pringle, for whom I had letters of introduction,
has come to Charleston to ask me to his plantation, but
there will be no boat from the port till Monday, and it is uncertain
then whether the blockading vessels, of which we hear
so much, may not be down by that time.
April 20th.—I visited the editors of the "Charleston Mercury"
and the "Charleston Courier" to-day at their offices. The
Rhett family have been active agitators for secession, and it is
said they are not over well pleased with Jefferson Davis for
neglecting their claims to office. The elder, a pompous, hard,
ambitious man, possesses ability. He is fond of alluding to
his English connections and predilections, and is intolerant of
New England to the last degree. I received from him, ere I
left, a pamphlet on his life, career and services. In the newspaper
offices there was nothing worthy of remark; they were
possessed of that obscurity which is such a characteristic of
the haunts of journalism—the clouds in which the lightning
is hiding. Thence to haunts more dingy still where Plutus
lives—to the counting-houses of the cotton brokers, up many
pairs of stairs into large rooms furnished with hard seats, engravings
of celebrated clippers, advertisements of emigrant
agencies and of lines of steamers, little flocks of cotton, specimens
of rice, grain, and seed in wooden bowls, and clerks
living inside railings, with secluded spittoons, and ledgers, and
tumblers of water.
I called on several of the leading merchants and bankers,
such as Mr. Rose, Mr. Muir, Mr. Trenholm, and others.
With all it was the same story. Their young men were off
to the wars—no business doing. In one office I saw an announcement
of a company for a direct communication by
steamers between a southern port and Europe. "When do
you expect that line to be opened? "I asked. "The United
States cruisers will surely interfere with it." "Why, I expect,
sir," replied the merchant, "that if those miserable
Yankees try to blockade us, and keep you from our cotton,
you'll just send their ships to the bottom and acknowledge us.
That will be before autumn, I think." It was in vain I
assured him he would be disappointed. "Look out there," he
said, pointing to the wharf, on which were piled some cotton
bales; "there's the key will open all our ports, and put us into
John Bull's strong box as well."
I dined to-day at the hotel, notwithstanding many hospitable
invitations, with Messrs. Manning, Porcher Miles, Reed,
and Pringle. Mr. Trescot, who was Under Secretary of State
in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, joined us, and I promised to visit
his plantation as soon as I have returned from Mr. Pringle's.
We heard much the same conversation as usual, relieved by
Mr. Trescot's sound sense and philosophy. He sees clearly
the evils of slavery, but is, like all of us, unable to discover
the solution and means of averting them.
The Secessionists are in great delight with Governor Letcher's
proclamation, calling out troops and volunteers, and it is
hinted that Washington will be attacked, and the nest of
Black Republican vermin which haunt the capital, driven out.
Agents are to be at once despatched to get up a navy, and
every effort made to carry out the policy indicated in jeff
Davis's issue of letters of marque and reprisal. Norfolk harbor
is blocked to prevent the United States ships getting
away; and at the same time we hear that the United States
officer commanding at the arsenal of Harper's Ferry has retired
into Pennsylvania, after destroying the place by fire.
How "old John Brown" would have wondered and rejoiced,
had he lived a few months longer!
